, 1887-09-20
TIE SHOES OF BREAD.

children; Germany, a beautiful country
of legends and of reveries, where the
moonlight, playing on the mists Of old
Rhine, creates a thousand fantastic Wis
ions. >
A poor woman lived alone at the far
end of the village in a humble little
house; the dwelling was miserable enough
and contained only the most necessary
furniture. An old bed with wreathed
columns, from which hung curtains of
yellowed serge, a kneading trough to put
the bread in, a walnut chest shining with
cleanness, but whose numberless worm
holes, filled up with wax, showed long
worn by the shaking head of the
grandam, a wheel polished smooth by
much using; that was all.
We were going to forget a child's
cradle, quite new, OF so softly lined, and
folded down with a pretty lowered
coverlid worked by a loving medicinal
Of a mother decorating the manger of
her little Jesus.
All the riches of the poor house were
conferred there. The child of a burgo-
master or Of an Aulic councillor would
not have been more tenderly Graded.
Holy prodigality! Sweet folly Of the
mother, who denies herself everything to
make a little luxury, in the midst of her
want, for her dear nursing.
This cradle gave a holiday air to the
pinched and small and dirty lodging, and
nature, ever compassionate to those who
are unfortunate, frightened its baroness
with tufts of house leek and with velvety
moses. While seeming to be but para
sites these good, pitiful plants %purposely
grow in the holes in the roof, filling them
up and transforming them into resplen-
dent hanging baskets which also served
to keep the rain from falling on the
cradle; ever the pigeons flattened them
selves against the windows and cooed
until the child II asleep.
A tiny bird, whom little Hanz had fed
with bread crumbs lin the winter wheH
the snow whitened the ground, now, in
the spring, let fall a grain from his beak
at the foot of the wall, and from it had
sprung a beautiful brier weed vine
which, fastening itself to the stones with
its green claws, had entered the room
through a broken pane, and crowned the
child's cradle with its garlands, 30 that
In the morning the blue eyes of little
Hanz and the blue bells of the vine
awoke at the same time and looked in
diligently at each other.
The dwelling was, then, poor, but not
gloomy. The mother of Hanz, whose
husband had died far away in the wars,
lived as best she could upon the few
vegetables that her garden yielded, and
upon what little she made from spinning;
very little indeed, but Hanz wanted for
IDthing, that was enough.
Certainly she was u pious and believing
woman, this mother of Hanz. She said
her prayers, worked and was %virtuous;
but she committed one sin; she took too
much pride in her son. 1t happens ome
times that mothers, seeing their beauti-
full, rosy babies with their tiny, dimpled
hands, and their white skin and their
pretty pink nails; imagine that they are
theirs forever; but God gives nothing, he
lends only; and like a forgotten creditor
be comes sometimes suddenly to claim
his due.
Because this fresh bud had been
grated from her stem, the mother of
Hanz thought she had caused it to be
born; and God-who from the depth Of
his blue vaulted paradise that is studded
with golden stars observes all that hap
pens on earth, and hears from the end Of
infnity the noise that a blade of grass
makes in growing-saw not this with
pleasure.
He saw, too, that Hanz was greedy
and that his mother was too indulgent
with him In this evil habit; often this
naughty child would cry when, after
eating grapes and apples, he would have
to finish his bread, that 30 many poor
people are in need of, and his mother
would let him throw away the piece he
had bitten into, or would finish 1t herself.
Now it happened that Hanz fell i'll;
fever burned him, his throat was choked,
and his breath anne heavily with a rat
Ting sound; he has the Group, a terrible
disease that has made the eyes of many
mothers and of many fathers red with
weeping.
The poor woman at this sight felt q
horrible pain at her heart.
Without doubt you have seen in some
church the image of Our Lady clothed in
mourning and standing beneath the cross,
with her breast tom open showing the
bleeding heart in which are plunged seven
silver blades-three OH one side and four
on the other. The meaning Of this is that
there is nc more frightful agony than that
OF a mother who sees her child die; and
this although the Holy Virgin believed in
the divinity of Jesus and knew that her
Son would rise again.
Now the mother of HAM had no such
hope. During the last days of his illness,
while she watched him, the mother me-
chemically continued spinning, and the
hum of her wheel mingled with the
child's labored breathing.
If there are those-rich-who think II
strange that a mother should spin beside
the dying bed Of her child. it is that they
do not know what torture poverty holds
in its grasp for the soul. Alas! it doesn't
alone destroy the body, it breaks the
heart also.
What she was spinning thus was the